Terra Imperium
by Imperadork
Summary: [AU] Humanity never found the Mass Relays nor did they ever discovered Element Zero but developed their own means of FTL and had finally started colonizing other systems. Humanity thought for as long as they had existed that they were alone in the universe until they discovered the first Mass Relay near their new colony of Shanxi.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Aliens?**

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

-Arthur C. Clarke

XXXXXXXXXX

 **April, 2157CE**

UNS Norway SDD-051

In geostationary orbit off Shanxi

The piercing sound of a whistle radiated throughout the ship, its wail more than enough to wake even the deepest sleepers. It had been heard by sailors for hundreds of years, the sound that they had always been training and dreading for. "General quarters! General quarters! All hands man your battle stations!" The once quiet and tranquil ship erupted into organized chaos with sleeping men abruptly awaken and groggily running through long and narrow corridors to their stations. Personal effects, cutlery, and anything that isn't bolted into the ship are secured to prevent them becoming deadly projectiles during combat maneuvers. Men donned their soft suits which contained a small rebreather and magnetic boots to lower the chances of the sailors from getting killed in the event of a hull breach. The Combat Information Center (CIC) came to life as systems were turned on as their operators arrived in a rush. Throughout the ship the incessant wail of the alarm droned on as the stations checked in one by one. The wail finally ended when the last station, damage control, checked in to Commander Jonathan Peterson's visible displeasure.

"Almost six minutes, Jesus that's the worse time so far." Lieutenant Commander Abigail Wang clicked her tongue in disgust. It should have taken the men less than four minutes to reach their battle stations yet now looking at her wristwatch it clearly wasn't the case. "We should make the drills even more often commander."

Peterson looked towards his Executive Officer (XO), sighed, then turned back to studying the planet below. "I know ex-oh I know, but there's no use of pushing the men this hard, this **is** a relatively new colony is it not? I doubt there's anything down there that's worth enough for the pirates to come all the way out here."

The commander looked around the bridge studying the men and women dutifully manning their stations, then silently chuckled to himself. Oh how he remembered watching those old sci-fi movies and games with the bridge being so spacious and the captain having a plush chair of his own to sit and rule over his little kingdom in space with fancy holograms projecting out of the armrests. Not in the real world. It's as cramped as the engineers could get it to be without hindering the movement of the crew. The captain's chair looked like something his grandfather could have sat on and he definitely don't have even close to enough holograms aboard his ship for it to be like one of those movies. No matter where it is space aboard a ship is always at a premium. But for all it's worth he still calls this fifty thousand ton lump of metal his home for nearly a decade.

He continued to study the planet for a few moments more before sitting down on the captain's chair. "Master Chief, secure from general quarters and helm, take us back to the space-ev."

A chorus of aye sirs rang out before the dreaded whistle rang throughout the ship once more ahead of the booming voice of Command Master Chief Petty Officer Alex Schuartz "Secure from general quarters, I repeat secure from general quarters. It was just a drill."

Lieutenant Commander Wang took her leave from the bridge followed by the Master Chief a short while later as well as all non-essential personnel. In just a few minutes the bridge was transformed from being in mayhem to being in peace, the only sound being the ever present hum of the inertial dampeners slowly ramping up to compensate for the gradual increase in acceleration.

After five minutes the thrusters cut off followed by the Reaction Control System (RCS) flipping the ship over and the thrusters turning on once more to slow down the ship. Peterson was thankful that the inertial dampeners were invented for it they don't exist then he'll need to be constantly strapped on to his seat fighting against the gee forces of the acceleration, something that the anti-grav would not be able to compensate for. They also would not be able to use the ship's maximum acceleration of forty standard gravities since the human body would already not be able to survive in sustained fifteen gee environments.

Five more minutes and the engines cut off a final time and the ship flipped over to reveal the Shanxi Space Elevator in front of them. The station was anchored to the planet with dozens of pairs of tethers securing the space terminal to the planet. Looking out of the bridge's small windows he could see several of the elevator capsules zooming up and down the tethers delivering cargo and passengers to and from the terminal. It had dozens of berths large enough to fit a class three freighter which is over twice the size of Peterson's destroyer, though he wasn't able to see any at the moment.

The destroyer slowly maneuvered to the other side of the cylindrical terminal and berthed beside the other two vessels of the Shanxi Patrol Flotilla, the frigates _Manila_ and _New Delhi_. Two gangways then extended from opposite ends of the berth connecting to the destroyer's airlock. The ship hissed and screeched before the engine was powered down to idle.

Peterson was satisfied with how the helmswoman handled herself. He got up from his chair and gave her an approving nod before getting off the bridge and into the maze of the ship's corridors heading to his cabin. Arriving at his door he opened it with an old fashioned keycard and closed it with a sigh as he entered, he immediately plopped down onto his bed still in his service uniform at last enjoying a few minutes to himself. He still remembered the first time he entered this room, observing that it was very small in normal standards but was already a suite in the navy's. His XO would go and do all the routine tasks such as discharging men for shore leave with the Master Chief helping her out. Now though, he could finally rest his mind after a month out on regular patrol for what the navy called "hostile crafts".

The captain scoffed. Hostile crafts? The only thing hostile out here is the boredom that eats into the soul of every sailor. Peterson tossed around in his bed, an action unbecoming of a captain of a ship but since he's in his private quarters he doesn't care. Looking professional and all is important when you're in front of the men you're commanding, its not really if you're all alone. He then realized something, maybe its because of the way he thinks that caused him to get stuck at Lieutenant Commander for such a long time. Oh well, he's already got his own command and would love to see the faces of his academy professors now, ones that said that he'll be lucky if he even gets a frigate.

"Commander, do remember that the Captain Sugawara would like to hear your report as soon as possible." A sultry disembodied voice in his quarters suddenly brought Peterson back to reality.

"Alright Eve just… give me a moment."

Peterson stood up from his bed and straightened his uniform before proceeding to his desk. He sat down on his small plastic chair and stared at the mess that is his table. "Eve, remind me to clean this up next time I'm here."

"Yes commander." The shipboard AI replied curtly. He was still getting used to the AIs having actual… well not exactly personalities but getting there, a far cry from his great-grandfather's time where voiced AIs were simply a novelty in smartphones. Now they're indispensable aboard a ship making both his and his XO's life far easier.

After arranging his desk for a bit, Peterson finally turned on his terminal and contacted Captain Sugawara. He was greeted by the captain's yeoman and placed on hold for a few minutes before being redirected to the captain himself.

"Commander Peterson! How are you? I trust that the patrol went smoothly?"

"Aye sir, as always." Peterson replied. He still wondered why the hell Captain Sugawara still insists on him reporting immediately after a patrol when nothing ever really happens out there. Ever since Sugawara was transferred here from Terra Nova a couple of months back the number of patrol cruises went up as well as adding new patrol routes to the stretched Patrol Flotilla. "I'll have the report sent to you by eighteen hundred later sir."

"Good, good." The Japanese Captain scratched his light stubble. "Dismissed commander."

Peterson nodded back before cutting off the transmission, he leaned back onto his chair murmuring to himself. "Well that was pretty useless, time to start writing that report anyway. Eve, can you bring up the old ones?"

"Just a moment commander." Eve replied, pulling up his old files into his terminal.

Peterson was tempted to simply copy and paste his old report as practically everything went as it did the last time but thought otherwise. He sighed once again. If the _Manila_ never discovered the Megastructure four months ago then Captain Sugawara would've never been transferred here. They would've never needed to do so much patrol so far into deep space. If only, if only, if only…

The commander shook his head trying to concentrate, at this rate he'll never meet his self imposed deadline. After getting his bearings Peterson started typing away at his keyboard instinctively. He finished and sent the report to Captain Sugawara with half an hour to spare. He got out of his chair and made himself a cup of coffee from his personal coffee maker before he sat down on his bed, switched his terminal to some music, and savoured his self made brew.

If only the Shanxi Patrol Flotilla was given more ships, even just two more frigates, then he wouldn't need to tax the men so much. Damn, being the guy in charge isn't easy.

A few more minutes of quietly sipping coffee was followed by Peterson switching the television on to the news. CNN, it looks like.

 _"In other news, the 'Shanxi Megastructure' appeared to have existed for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years according to the new study released by UNESCO."_

Wow, Peterson thought, CNN got excellent timing today.

 _"Though the Megastructure's exact location remains classified, sources have confirmed that UNESCO have used a new method, in determining the Megastructure's age since it is made out of materials that they claimed did not exist in the periodic table. Critics are already arguing that unless the material was released to be investigated by a third party, we wouldn't know if they're telling the truth or just running us around."_

Peterson sipped some more coffee. He listened some more but switched it off when several people came up to the screen and started arguing with one another. Oh how the Megastructure was just one big conspiracy to take the people's minds away from the real problems, with doomsday apologists who proclaim the end is nigh and an alien invasion is imminent.

Eve interrupted his musings. "Commander, a reminder for your meeting in five hours with the Shanxi Defence Committee."

Peterson finished his coffee. "Yes…" mom, he was about to say but quickly stopped himself. It would be horrible if the shipboard AI started to have a slang and was traced to his conversations with it. "…Eve, I'll get right to it." He went to his small sink and washed his mug before placing it back into the small cupboard. He then prepared his dress blues for the meeting later down on the planet, the first in a series of meetings to ' _formulating a basic contingency plan and defence strategy in the event of an alien invasion'_ if he recalled correctly.

He smirked while shining his buttons, he never though that anybody would actually be making contingencies for an alien invasion. But then again the Megastructure was undoubtedly not a natural occurrence in the universe and having saw it himself several times already, it was most definitely constructed by someone. Someone who's level of technology is far beyond that of humanity and Peterson shuddered to think what the aliens are capable of if they came and started knocking.

XXXXXXXXXX

RV Midas SR-091

Shanxi Megastructure. Approximately 2 light-years from Shanxi, in interstellar space

The fifteen kilometer long Shanxi Megastructure never ceased to awe Doctor Hiroshi Nakamura as he gazed at it through the ship's porthole. It had two distinct parts that mirror each other with each having a curved portion close to the back that created a circular hole in the middle of the two containing static gyroscopic rings.

"Quite a remarkable thing isnt' it doctor."

Doctor Nakamura swung his head around to see Jackson joining him at the table with a tray full of food. "Yes indeed." He took another mouthful of potatoes from his own tray before turning back to the porthole. "You know it would be pretty horrible if the megastructure turns out to be a beacon that directs some hegemonic galactic empire towards us."

Jackson chuckled. "Well that's what we're here to find out doctor."

Nakamura nodded absently, his thoughts still on the megastructure and the… quite impressive amount of funding the research team has got from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Then again if it turned out to be some kind of alien structure that was built by a species that is still alive today, it'll change humanity as they know it for better or worse.

The doctor finished his potatoes before excusing himself from Jackson, returned the tray and cutlery, and headed back to his cabin. He would like to get some more rest before it was his expedition's time to disembark and make their way to the megastructure and to collect more samples to figure out just what the hell it was made out of.

 _Serendipity_ and _Serenity_ already had their expeditions on the megastructure while the expeditions from _Midas_ and _Curiosity_ would be sent later on when the other two ship's returned which would be in a few hours. Nakamura also noted that the destroyer _Norway_ and the frigate _Manila_ was maintaining station several light-minutes away from the megastructure keeping a watchful eye for any uninvited guests.

Nakamura entered his quarters and sat down on his bed, he set the alarm to an hour from now and lied down to take a quick nap. An hour later he was awaken by the irritating beeps of his clock and, groggily, turned it off. When he finally came to he prepared himself for the expedition by browsing over the notes once more, on what the objectives of today's mission are, and what difficulties they may or may not expect. All off it which seemed routine for him by now since it was already his third expedition to the site.

He went on for a few more pages more before noticing the time. Nakamura turned off the terminal, stretched, and proceeded to the small docking bay of the ship several levels below the crew quarters. He was greeted by the other crew who would be accompanying him, seven in total, before changing over to his soft suit. He doubt that they would be doing a lot of spacewalks since in most of the expedition's duration they're controlling drones, but then again to be sure of any eventualities the ship's crew loaded their Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) suits into the boat.

The expedition's crew entered the boat through a gangway connected to the boat's passenger airlock from the side and made their round of the boat making sure it and the drones are in top shape before proceeding to their stations in the cockpit to start the pre-flight checks. Nakamura always loathed this part, being the senior scientist on board with no flight training or experience whatsoever he was relegated to simply being a passenger while the crew do their things.

Even though they each have a terminal at their stations his doesn't even have anything referring to the flight controls which he thought was just as well so that he could concentrate on leading the expedition.

He was already gazing away into launch bay, thinking of how they'll conduct the expedition when he was brought back by the sudden jolt of the boat undocking with the ship. Through the cockpit's narrow windows he could see the ship slowly floating up and away from boat, the gangway retracting back into the inner walls of the ship and the massive airlocks at the bottom of _Midas_ slowly closing.

As the boat slowly maneuvered away from the _Midas_ he was greeted by the sight of the megastructure in its full glory and the sleek lines of _Midas_. Being a research vessel the ship was rated to be able to handle atmospheric flight unlike the larger freighters or navy ships which aren't, they could only dock at space elevators.

Since the larger ships can't get anywhere near an atmosphere they all looked like blocky monstrosities because… well having no air resistance in space there isn't a need to make those ships elegantly aerodynamic like the _Midas_. It cuts down on the production cost though at the expense of form.

 _Midas_ slowly got smaller as the boat increased its acceleration towards the megastructure fifty kilometers away. In the halfway point the boat flipped over and started decelerating without Nakamura even noticing. They finally arrived at the megastructure stopping several hundred meters away to deploy the drones.

"How goes the drones Doctor Roxas?"

Dr. Kenneth Roxas grunted from his terminal, eyes still fixated on the monitor. "Well Doctor Nakamura, everything looks good. I'm just rechecking their orders making sure they don't go to far."

"Good, and Mister Jackson can you update me on the progress of _Curiosity's_ expedition? I might get too caught up to notice them hailing us."

The communications officer simply nodded. "Alright doc."

"Very well then, lets get to it."

XXXXXXXXXX

 **June, 2157CE**

UN General Assembly, United Nations Headquarters. Geneva, Switzerland.

Approximately 310 light-years from Shanxi

The speaker in the podium droned on endlessly. The representative from the Martian nation of Tharsis went on and on about how the tariffs imposed by Terra Nova on Martial products were unjust and against what were signed in the Interplanetary Trade Organization (ITO).

Secretary-General Park Gui Hei pinched the ridge of her nose in boredom and annoyance. Representative Indra had been pushing for tariff free trade between the planets for the past year and Terra Nova had already given some concessions in the matter but the Martians wanted Terra Nova to remove all tariffs. Problems like this won't get solved very quickly.

Her phone buzzed. She checked it, grateful for any distraction.

 _'Madame, the Security Council session slated tomorrow has been delayed. Councillor Angelo informed us that there was a suspected terror attack in Sirius Prime and he would be needed in-system for at least the next few days'_

Park groaned. Attacks like these had been increasing the past few year, being carried out by groups that want to secede from the UN. The last time that happened five decades ago humanity almost destroyed itself. Even with the warp drive moving from one system to another still took days.

She placed her phone back into her purse, looked up, and was delighted to finally see Indra moving off the platform. The president of the session replaced Indra and Park perked up when he started discussion into the real stuff, the reason why she was the secretary-general: UN budgetary woes. The military clamoring for more ships and men, the Systems Health Organization (SHO) lobbying for more funding, the Interplanetary Monetary Fund (IMF) negotiating with the new colonies on loans, and finally the elephant in the room with UNESCO requesting even more funding to accelerate its investigation of the Shanxi Megastructure.

UNESCO was already receiving the largest budget in its history with even the navy putting down something. Park looked through the request and was not at all surprised to see the megastructure placed front and center, they even labelled it as a possible threat to interplanetary security. She sighed thinking about all the things that people are labelling as "threats to interplanetary security" just to get more funding for their pet projects.

No, she'll have to turn the request down. There are a lot more important things for the money to be spent on. Anyway UNESCO already had a lot, far more than what she would have approved if the navy didn't support them.

The General Assembly (GA) went on down the list, accepting the navy's request of building two more light cruisers but rejecting the army's claim of raising another infantry division to put down separatist elements in Eden Prime, they'll have to make do with what they already have. The GA accepted and rejected various request more for over an hour before the president finally ended the session.

Park leaned back into her chair rubbing her eyes. It had been a productive session, more so than she thought. The secretary-general left the plenary after having a few idle chats with the other representatives and went straight to her office in the penthouse of the headquarters building.

She poured herself half a glass of brandy aged fifty years before sitting down onto her chair and opened her terminal. She browsed the internet leisurely for a short time, sipping her brandy before she was interrupted by a pop-up in her terminal by her secretary.

 _Ah, he's here._

"Enter."

The door opened to reveal an East Asian man in his forties wearing a suit. He walked with measured steps and a head held high. "Madame Secretary-General, I am honored to finally meet you."

Park stood up from behind her desk and extended her hand for the visitor. He took her hand and shook it lightly before they both took their seats.

"What brought you all the way back to Earth from Shanxi Doctor Nakamura? I trust the travel had been quite enjoyable." She said, offering the brandy.

Nakamura politely waved the spirit off. "Yes madame it was quite nice."

 _Of course it was._ Park thought to herself. _With how much money we're giving UNESCO, that first-class seat ought to be comfortable._

The doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a small memory stick. He then handed it over to Park with a sly grin. "I think that the information stored in here might make you reconsider our request."

She sneered, accepting the stick and plugging it into her terminal. "I don't recall humans having the ability to see into the future."

"Oh we most certainly do not madame, but we were quite certain that the request would be turned down and made our plans accordingly."

Park glanced at the doctor while the information in the stick was still loading. "I assume the reason than you hand delivered the data and not simply send it through the hypercomms is because it is of the highest classified material?"

Nakamura's grin got larger. "Oh spot on madame, and it's all in the stick."

Park started reading when the files finally opened in the monitor. Her eyes widened when she realized that it truly is very important and not bullshit. No wonder UNESCO wanted it sent straight to the top at once, bypassing the dreaded UN bureaucracy.

"Element Zero?" Park chuckled, amusement in her voice. "You really called it element zero?"

"It's more like a placeholder name for it madame since we don't really know what it is or even what its uses are in the megastructure." Nakamura replied, slightly embarrassed. Scientists were never known for giving cool sounding names.

"I see."

Park continued to read through the files as the office had gone quiet. Nakamura sat silently as he waited for the secretary-general to finish reading the preliminary reports. Minutes gone by without a sound, he was already starting to daydream but was interrupted when the she leaned back into her plush seat and stared at him intently.

"I trust that UNESCO had made all the necessary precautions to prevent any form of leak?"

"Uh, yes madame."

"Good." Park then leaned over the table. "I'll be updating UNESCO regarding the security council's decision in a week or so, would that be alright doctor?"

"Of course madame."

"Very well then." She sank back into her seat. "Is that all Doctor Nakamura?"

"Yes madame."

They both stood up with Nakamura thanking her again, shook hands, and strolled out of the office, the doors automatically closing behind him. Park sat back down and gulp down the remaining brandy in her glass. Deep in thought she didn't realize that it was already the end of the work day until her secretary buzzed her terminal.

"Thank you Shila, I'll be staying a bit later today. You can go first."

"Okay ma'am, take care." The secretary replied before cutting the feed.

Park went back into her own thoughts trying to decide what the best course of action will be. The report stated that without a shadow of a doubt that the megastructure is some form of a gateway, though how the element zero is used and where it leads to is still a mystery. There was also something in the report that left her quite disturbed.

 _'... have located what appears to be an inactive communications buoy of some form just 1500km away from the megastructure. It was only spotted when RV Curiosity happened to pass by within visual range as the buoy way not detected in either radar, ladar, or any of the passive scanners aboard the vessel. It had yet to be disturbed by the expeditions for fear of inadvertent activation…'_

She pinched the ridge of her nose and closed her eyes taking deep breaths. Just a year in her term and she might actually get into a first contact situation and go down in history as the one who opened up humanity to the galaxy, or the one one that lead to its downfall.

She groaned and poured herself another glass of brandy, quickly washing it down her throat. Humanity had so far explored a four hundred light-year bubble of space around Earth, with the galaxy being almost a hundred thousand light years wide who's to say there aren't other civilizations out there?

Park took her phone out and opened her notes for the delayed Security Council session. She quickly read through it before marking a new one at the top.

 _*IMPORTANT: debrief council in new findings, add. funding for megastructure and add. military presence in Shanxi. Might be other aliens in galaxy._

Park shook her head in amusement. Her life right now suddenly turned into a character in a bad science-fiction novel. She took the bottle of brandy and was already halfway to pouring herself another glass when she thought otherwise, she realized that she's already feeling a little tingle from the alcohol. She placed the cap back onto the bottle and stored it in the table's bottom drawer.

The secretary-general turned her terminal off, she got up from her chair and stretched before gathering her belongings. She left her office with an hour of overtime and proceeded to the lobby. Park was greeted by her driver Bobby when he pulled up the headquarter's main entrance in the secretary-general's heavily armoured Cadillac.

"We headed back home madame?" Bobby asked as Park entered the back seat of the car.

"Yeah Bobby." Park replied, the car door automatically closing beside her.

The Cadillac moved out of the UN Headquarters and into the slow moving traffic of the nightly rush hour. "So how was your day madame?" Bobby grunted as the car stopped at an intersection.

"Oh you know determining the future of the human race, as always." She shrugged, a grin on her face.

Bobby laughed. "Sure don't want another interstellar war on our hands, an interstellar war two and a half world wars is already more than enough."

Park kept grinning back but deep down she knew just how much truth their jokes have.

XXXXXXXXXX

 ** _Codex_**

 _The United Nations as of 2157CE comprised of dozens of systems though only twelve are inhabited with fifteen inhabited planets in total including the colonies but not counting mining outpost. With a population of some eleven billion people, Earth alone comprised over half of the population of the UN well as three-fifths of its total Gross Domestic Product. Each planet has an elected councillor taking a seat in the fifteen seat Security Council while each nation has an elected representative that occupies a seat in the two hundred and seventy seat General Assembly with elections held every five standard years._

 _DuPont-Alles Drive or more colloquially know as the "warp drive" was named after the renowned physicist Dr. Richard DuPont and Engineer Michelle Alles who lead a team that created the first successful prototype of a FTL drive in 2086 with a nominal speed of just 5 light-years a day._

 _UNS Norway SDD-051 is the lead ship of the Norway-class Destroyer (SDD-051 to SDD-070). Launched in 2143 and commissioned in 2145, she was the first of a new series of destroyers to mount the new fourth generation DuPont-Alles drives capable of traversing 70 light-years in 24 hours._

 _UNS Manila SFF-058 and UNS New Delhi SFF-063 are both New Arcadia-class Frigates (SFF-052 to SFF-113). Launched in 2122 and 2123, and commissioned in 2124 and 2125 respectively. These venerable ships served as the backbone of the UN navy's fight to combat piracy in the outer systems. Although almost equal in size and mass to the bigger destroyers yet having significantly less firepower, these frigate can run a six month patrol in deep space without the need to resupply when most ships could only run two at best before running out of either fuel or provisions._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Relay 314**

It's something turians are taught from birth. If even one person is still left standing at the end of a war, then the fight was worth it.

-Garrus Vakarian

XXXXXXXXXX

 **July, 2157CE**

TSF Defiance

Less than 2 light-years from Relay 314, in FTL travel

Captain Nilus Declus yawned as he stood in the CIC, this had to be one of the more mind-numbing responsibility of his job. His ship had been tasked with checking Relay 314 twice a month if it had been activated by some naive species or by someone within their own having ulterior motives.

Being in command of a cruiser Declus was pretty confident his ship can take on anything that might try to activate the relay, what he's not confident of is for it to actually happen. He'd been checking the relay for years now and nothing ever happens.

He doubted that anyone would actually want to come here in the ass-end of the galaxy even when there's a garden world within two light years of Relay 314. It's so far out from everything else that none of the council species even tried to colonize it since its discovery hundreds of years ago.

Hell, he doubted that anyone even went to the garden world in the past decades. Scratch that, he doubted that anyone other than his ship even went anywhere close to Relay 314 itself in years.

Declus yawned once more, he tried to stop himself but was simply too bored. He would rather do piles of paperwork, such an antiquated expression, than spend two days a month practically doing nothing.

The voice of his first officer finally gave him some distraction. "Captain we will be exiting FTL in five minutes."

"Very well Verrus, thank you."

The first officer saluted before heading back to his post.

One of the ways Declus had tried to pass the time was daydreaming that he was in an epic space battle with his ship leading the charge and emerging triumphant against their enemies. He grinned, still remembering his time studying about the Krogan Rebellions, how the brave men of the Turian Navy won despite overwhelming odds. He longed to be in one of those battles, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat but it is not to be.

Ever since the Krogan Rebellions ended the galaxy was in an almost perpetual state of peace. The Council declared the mighty Turian Navy as the primary 'peacekeeping' force in the galaxy but everyone knew that it was just a nice way of relegating the Turians as glorified space police.

The last major war that happened was the Geth War and yet instead of moving in to crush the abomination that the Quarians had created the Council decided to contain the Geth within the Perseus Veil, something that Declus thought was a mistake. Why wait for the Geth to build up their forces until they became so powerful that the Citadel Races would be unable to destroy the threat easily?

Declus shrugged. It happened three hundred years ago and there isn't anything he can do about it now.

"Captain, we are exiting FTL in thirty seconds." The first officer's voice knocked Declus back to reality once again.

He looked at his terminal, its screen having a video feed to the outside and saw the blueshifted streaks of light slowly change to green then suddenly disappearing, replaced by the brilliant light of billions of stars. They are now out of FTL.

"Comms, are we getting anything from Relay 314?" Declus spoke.

The communications officer sat silently fixated in front of his terminal. He finally spoke after a minute. "Negative sir, nothing on the comm buoys. Same as always sir."

Declus chuckled. Well there you have it, Admiral Prolio Victoril would be delighted to know that the relay is still inactive. Being sent to the twenty sixth fleet was pretty much a death sentence to the admiral's career since it is the fleet assigned to the ass-end of the galaxy, the fleet where most of the men are deemed second-rate and thus better placed far away from the spotlight of the Terminus Systems or even the Attican Traverse. He suspect nothing short of a miracle of some sort would make the admiral delighted.

"Helm, let's get the hell out of here."

"Aye sir." The helmsman agreed through the intercom, inputting the pre-plotted course into his terminal and jumping back into FTL.

The whole event from getting out of FTL, checking the relay, and jumping back in lasted barely three minutes, and now they have a eleven hour journey back to base to look forward to.

Declus left the CIC and headed to his quarters through a turbolift, he would rather spend most of that time asleep than stare blankly into the void.

He fell asleep the moment he hit the bed and awoke four hours later, sadly seven hours too early. He finally resigned to try to be productive in some way and went to his private terminal to check up on the ship reports of his squadron.

Everything seemed normal with the other cruiser and four frigates in his command out on regular patrol. Declus groaned as he turned his terminal off, what the hell did he do to deserve this position? He did well in his days in the naval academy yet some of his classmates who did worse than him are now in command of squadrons in the Terminus Systems.

He tried to recall a time before he got the command of the _Defiance_ when he had somehow fucked up yet came up empty. He was, as far as he can see, the very definition of an average officer in the Turian Navy and yet he was sent here to wither.

In the one hundred and seventy years of the Twenty Sixth Fleet's existence most sailors who served there remained in the fleet for the rest of their careers, the few who managed to get transferred out were looked down upon by the others in the their new units.

Declus tried to think if anybody actually doesn't like him enough in to dump him in the fleet but came up empty handed once again. He tried consoling himself that it was simply luck that he and his ship was picked for this assignment but could never shake the feeling that politics was somehow involved here.

Declus finally sighed. He'll try to do his best and make high command see that he and his ship was better than some second-rate crew. Pulling himself back together he went back to his bed and tried once again to sleep, he'll need all the energy when they get back to base and give it his best.

XXXXXXXXXX

STG Headquarters

******, *******, Sur'Kesh

The Salarian STG is one of the most elite outfits in the galaxy second only to the Council SPECTREs. Being under the control of the Salarian Union it is of no surprise that the STG had infiltrated not only its enemies but also its allies especially the Turians. Although publicly the Council Races make a show of unity and peace between them in reality there is an espionage war being waged, a war than Major Idoln Tels was all too familiar with. It was something that only a select few in the galaxy even have an idea of the extent of the war and the major is far from being one of them.

Tels walked into the STG Headquarters thinking of this new assignment that he was given, a promotion actually. He was just a captain just two days ago trying to root out smugglers around Sur'Kesh, now he's being kicked upstairs to help intercept and decrypt communications between the Turian high command and its respective fleets, something that bodes well for the career of the twenty three year old Salarian.

"Good morning major" A younger salarian stood up and saluted Tels as he entered the building and made his way to the front desk. Judging from his collar patch, a lieutenant.

"Good morning lieutenant. Major Idoln Tels reporting, these are the files for my transfer." Tels took out his omni-tool and in a few button presses sent his files over to the lieutenant's terminal.

"Hmm, yes sir it checks out." He typed something in his terminal before sending new files to Tels. "I just sent you the directions to your new station as well as your new ID. You're assigned to General Garlon Lolban's cell which is in charge of the twenty sixth fleet. Good luck major."

Tels gave the lieutenant a curt nod then proceeded into the main office area. He used the map to help him navigate the maze of what looked like hundreds of salarians in the area. One thing that isn't common public knowledge about the STG is that it is not entirely composed of hardened, deadly, highly experienced agents. Behind every agent is almost twenty men that do mundane tasks that make the agents function in the first place. Men like the lieutenant in the entrance and possibly most of the ones with him in the room at the moment.

Come to think of it he himself is one of those men in the background. Then again agents rarely get promoted past colonel, they either die early or are simply too valuable to remove from the field. Tels would very much like to reach general one day thank you very much.

He turned into a long hallway and his omni-tool buzzed when he finally reached a door.

 _Cell 38_

He glanced at both sides of the hallway noting that there are dozens of doors in equal intervals each having its own number and that not a lot of people are moving about unlike the main office area earlier. Tels unlocked the door using his omni-tool and went inside being greeted by a very plain sight: two rows of terminals facing away from one another with a central aisle leading up to another door with 'Operations' etched into the wall above it.

Tels observed as he walked down the aisle that most of the terminals, twenty two he counted, are occupied save for some here and there. The room was deathly quiet with the operators all wearing headsets and concentrating on their respective terminals.

He reached the door and used the ID in his omni-tool to to unlock it. A couple of seconds later the red holographic sign changed into a green one and Tels was allowed to enter and finally meet the general himself.

"Ah, hello Major Tels. We had been expecting you." The general smiled sitting with his staff officers around a holo-table. "Come now, I was just about to start briefing them on today's tasks and would rather not repeat myself."

Tels saluted the general before heading to an empty seat.

"Now just to get the major up to speed the Twenty Sixth Turian Fleet is just one of their frontier patrol fleets. It has a dreadnought as a flagship, the _Infallible_ , but it is a very old one. Most of the fleet are made up of frigates with a few cruisers here and there though they have several squadrons around the Theta Cluster where a primary Mass Relay, Relay 314, and several other secondary relays are located."

The holo-table came to life as a galaxy map appeared above, it zoomed in slowly until it focused on the Theta Cluster.

"Only the secondary Relay 1928 is active and serves as the main avenue in and out of the cluster. Colonel Elksom and his men are to continue intercepting communications within the fleet while Colonels Bayore's and Mimnori's are to continue intercepting traffic between the fleet and high command itself. Major Tels you're assigned to Colonel Elksom and you'll be responsible for the first tier decryption and analysis."

Tels' eyes widened, he didn't thought that he'll be given such an important duty so quickly. First tier decryption and analysis had always been the most difficult part as you'll actually need to decipher the codes the other is using and then afterwards try to interpret whatever came out.

The general's voice broke him from his trance. "Major Tels I have read your files, you were critical in crippling the smuggling operations around this planet through hacking into the smuggler's networks and gathering important intelligence leading to their arrests. I have no doubt that will you be able to accomplish this task that I am giving you, am I correct major?"

"Uh yes sir, of course sir!" Tels replied, still at a lost.

"Good. Colonel Elksom here will guide you through, he was the previous operator before he got promoted like you were." The general's smile made Tels a little bit more at ease.

The briefing continued on, discussing new methods to decrypt the more advanced Turian firewalls as well as intel that Tels didn't even know he had the clearance for.

When the briefing finally ended, far longer than Tels thought it should have, he was finally accompanied to his terminal by the aforementioned colonel.

"So major, what do you think so far?" The colonel said as the pair walked down the aisle.

"Well sir it was a lot more relaxed than I though, being so high up the chain and all." Tels replied.

Elksom sniffled. "That's because its all STG men here, when you get to General Lolban's level then you'll have to start dealing with politicians."

"Point taken sir."

They arrived at Tels' new terminal and Elksom immediately got to work teaching the major his new job.

"So far in my four years here nothing much really ever happens in the Twenty Sixth. Oh there's the promotion and reassignment every now and then as well as retirements, accidents, and the like but nothing much really happens." The colonel tapped something in the terminal and a file appeared. "This will make your life easier major."

Tels saw that the file contained line after line of code. Analyzing the codes for a bit he realized that the codes repeat itself after several days.

"They reuse old codes."

"Yes they do major, no wonder the Turians see it as its worst fleet and relegate them to secondary duties." The colonel said in disgust. "Salarians would never have gotten this sloppy."

Tels had mixed feeling about the revelation. On one hand it would make his job infinitely easier in comparison to hacking into a fleet who regularly change their codes, on the other hand it is exactly because it is easy that it looked like he'll be stuck at major for the foreseeable future.

"Thank you, colonel."

"No problem major, if you have any questions you can come ask me back in the operations room. You can also ask majors Yebani and Soral here if its not that urgent." Elksom pointed to the two sitting beside Tels.

Tels nodded and afterwards diligently went to work decrypting the Twenty Sixth Fleet's internal communications. He was at awe on how the STG was actually able to penetrate so deeply into the fleet, discovering more and more about the ships' captains and their possible personalities through reports.

Salvidonis - slacker, late on the reports, not highly respected by the men.

Declus - quite a competent officer in a sea of incompetence, loved by his men, somewhat rash.

Admiral Victoril - uninspired, bitter, resentful of being transferred to the Twenty Sixth.

Tels was fascinated on how much he could learn about a person on the other side of the galaxy. He continued forwarding these intelligence up the chain of command, adding his own assessment on how it may affect the performance of the Twenty Sixth.

In just a span of a few days Tels transformed from being lost on what to do to feeling right at home at his terminal. Doing the same thing over and over daily gets old sometimes but discovering things about the Turians never would.

Tels settled into his new assignment with surprising vigour. He would be content with ending his career in the STG as a Lieutenant Colonel but would be extremely please if he got to be a full Colonel. For now though, there are codes to be broken and reports to be read.

XXXXXXXXXX

Council Chambers

The Citadel Tower, The Citadel

The three councillors looked down upon the Batarian and Volus ambassador from their positions high above the platform. The ambassadors once again sought audience with the Council in a dispute that had been going on and off for the past hundred years or so.

The Volus claimed pirate attacks on their shipping were backed by the Batarian government while the Batarians in turn claim the Volus are lying through their masks and are putting the blame on the Batarians for not properly patrolling their own space, being one of the Turian's lackey.

The verbal confrontation in the platform progressively became louder until the booming voice of Councillor Tandas ended the scene.

"Enough! Both of you! You both are dismissed and will return once you have CONCLUSIVE evidence that support your claims, not hurl insults at each other."

The chamber fell into silence as the two ambassadors stared at the Turian councillor.

"You may take your leave as we take our." With that proclamation Tandas left his post leaving the other two councillors shaking their heads.

Tandas was an excellent councillor though prone to sudden outbursts especially when he felt insulted. Though he might jeopardize some meetings, Councillor Tevos thought that Tandas' outburst sometimes work to their advantage.

Tevos looked back down onto the platform at the still disbelieving ambassadors, she could tell that it was their first time seeing Tandas' fury. "Ambassadors, as Councillor Tandas said we shall continue this audience when one party or the other have evidence to support their allegations and not just hearsay. I am now officially closing this audience."

"I concur." The Salarian councillor agreed.

The ambassadors continued staring at them before the Volus inhaled deeply. "Very well councillors [inhale] I shall take my leave."

"As will I." The Batarian said. He turned around and briskly walked away leaving the Volus behind.

The Volus shook his head sadly before following in the Batarian's wake. Tevos sighed as she got off her post and went over to Councillor Basse, they exchanged notes as they walked back to their offices.

"Ambassador Pombogoh was not very wise to bring up the Volus' status as a client race." Basse said as they turned a corner into the Council Lounge.

"I do not think so." Tevos retorted. "Ambassador Pombogoh is clever enough to not hurl insult where it does not count. I think that he was simply testing Tandas, to see how far he can go before Tandas broke. It seems he found it.

Basse smiled. "It may be. Tandas had only been in the Council for three months and he is already shaking things up."

"That we can both agree." Tevos smiled back.

The two councillors continued making idle chat as they walked down the corridor leading to their offices. They arrived at Tevos' office first and Tevos entered her office after saying goodbye to her companion. She took a bottle of the finest Asari wine out of its cabinet and poured herself a drink, savouring its exquisite taste.

Placing the bottle back into the cabinet she headed to her private terminal and sat down on her comfortable chair. She opened the terminal with disinterest as it booted up, her mind wandering over what dinner may be served in the banquet later.

She accessed the files on 'Uncontacted Species' and began to read. She was an explorer in her maiden days, a life almost free of politics and bureaucracy. Now six hundred and thirty years old she is surrounded, but more importantly on top of it all.

Reading the tales of surveyors who discovered new species was her favourite pastime, each story unique, each story a fresh appreciation on just how vast the galaxy truly is and how many different species are out there just waiting to be contacted.

She read the entry on the Yahg and sneered, remembering the episode on how not to contact a species. She read the entries on other species: the Jurian, Sinchi, Porlak and many many more. Some looking wholly alien to her with appendages more akin to the Hanars while others look remarkably similar to herself…

Tevos looked at the name of the species, Human it said.

 _'Discovered by Luiyata Artemi four hundred years ago the species called "Human" inhabit a world approximately three hundred light years from Relay 314. The exact coordinates of their home planet was lost when her files were corrupted by a virus thought to be sent by a rival before she could upload it to the extranet'_

Tevos snorted, that was awfully convenient.

' _The star cluster around the Human homeworld called "Earth" contained numerous garden worlds though curiously there were no mass relay within the cluster, and the amount of element zero detected was also abnormally low. Relay 314 was the closest mass relay to the cluster and it took Artemi and her crew over two years to discover the Humans, moving from system to system. It took them almost thirty days to make the return trip from Earth directly to Relay 314.'_

Tevos scratched her nose, this Earth was bizarrely far from the Mass Relay network. Could it be that the Protheans simply didn't see that part of the galaxy worth colonizing? Or did the Protheans not even try exploring it?

 _'The Humans, when Artemi discovered them were in a pre-industrial state with hundreds of kingdoms spread throughout the planet. Their sailing ships contained rudimentary cannons and their armies rely on beasts to transport supplies. Their technology mostly dependent on the skill of craftsmen and their economy can be correctly called primitive'_

Curious, if the development of the other Citadel Species are to be considered these humans may very well be a spacefaring species today though without a nearby mass relay they wouldn't be able to easily contact the other species in the galaxy or the Citadel itself for that matter.

The entry continued on for dozens of pages more detailing how the surveyors had difficulty translating the Human language as there were so many, on how they were able to gather the relevant data without the Humans knowing that they were there at all, and on how due to its distance to any mass relay it would be best to not colonize the cluster for the time being as there are more places in the galaxy which have easier access to the wider galactic community.

Tevos finally closed the entry into the Humans, amused on how such a discovery had been mostly forgotten. She got up from her chair and moved to her small wardrobe looking for an appropriate attire for the banquet later.

Changing into her new clothes Tevos reflected on how many of the species she had read might have already gotten extinct. She remembered reading that two hundred years after discovering the Porlak the same surveyor went back to the their homeworld attempting to see if they had advanced enough that revealing the wider galactic community to them would not result in social chaos.

What the surveyor found instead was a tomb world, the Porlak having destroyed themselves in nuclear armageddon just a decade prior to the surveyor's return.

Such a waste, Tevos thought. She looked into a mirror and was satisfied on how she looked. The Asari councillor made her way to her private shuttle still thinking about these Humans.

She shrugged. She'll probably forget about them after being swamped by politics in just a few hours' time. Either way it was a very interesting read, something that can occupy her mind as the shuttle made its way to the Presidium.


	3. Chapter 3

**PART I**

 ** _September, 2157CE_**

千里之行﹐始於足下

 _A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step_

 _-_ 老子, Lao Tzu

* * *

 **Chapter Three: First Contact**

"How do you say 'we come in peace' when the very words are an act of war?"

-Peter Watts, Blindsight

XXXXXXXXXX

TSV Defiance

Approximately 0.5 light-years from Relay 314

"Comms, we got anything from Relay 314?" Captain Nilus Declus absently tapped his datapad. Here he is once again checking on the relay. It had been more than a month since he told himself he would do his best and he had honestly been doing his best but just like the relay nothing much ever happens in the Twenty Sixth.

Declus waited for the communications officer to reply. He knew Ebonus was a bit slow but he's taking far too long today.

"Comms what's the status?" Declus repeated, a low growl emanating from his voice. Verifying that the relay remained dormant should not have taken so long, Ebonus too had been doing it for years now.

Nothing. Declus groaned, this is unbecoming of Ebonus. He could see the comms officer sitting at his terminal, unmoving. Placing the datapad down went over to Ebonus and tapped his shoulder. "What seems to be the problem lieutenant?"

Ebonus looked over his shoulder, his face confused. "I… I'm not sure sir. The relay is still inactive but… I'm getting some faint signals from the buoys." Ebonus turned back to his terminal. "I was comparing the signal with the ones in the manual and…

The comms officer inhaled deeply. "I think someone is trying to access the relay sir."

Declus stared at the comms officer eyes confused at the revelation, his earlier hostility evaporating. "Lieutenant is it being activated?"

"No sir, well not yet anyway. The signal is very faint and would only be detected if you were looking at the right place, they might be trying to find a way to activate it but… I just don't know sir."

Declus' heart started beating harder. This could be it, after years of doing this soul crushing patrol they'll finally see some action at last.

"Very well lieutenant." Declus moved back to his post. He switched on the intraship speakers and steadied himself. "Now hear this, something is amiss with Relay 314 and we are going to investigate. It may be nothing or it may be someone trying to activate the relay. Whatever happens I expect the men of the Turian Navy to be in their very best and show Admiral Victoril that we're not just some second-raters."

Declus shut the intraship off. He turned over to his first officer and nodded. "Verrus, signal battlestations if you would please. I would very much want to be ready if it turns out to actually be something."

"Yes sir." The first officer replied.

The lights in the CIC changed from a neutral white into dark red. The horn signalling battlestations pulsated throughout the ship and the captain buckled himself in his chair. It won't be nice getting thrown about the CIC in battle.

He picked up the intercom, feeling his heart beat through his talons. "Helm, get us to a tenth light second from the relay and be ready to immediately conduct evasive maneuvers once we emerge from FTL."

"Yes sir." The helmsman replied, his voice cracking a little.

Declus was under no impression that his crew was ready for a battle. Oh they have the regular drills and classes with the admiral doing a fleet maneuver once a year but those were conducted in a controlled environment, now they're jumping into the unknown.

"Captain, the ship is in battlestations and we are ready to jump into FTL." Verrus said. He was also strapped into his chair as well as the rest of the crew in the CIC.

"Helm, jump to FTL on my mark... Mark."

The hum of the engines abruptly increased, his seat vibrated a little but other than that nothing much changed, the inertial dampeners working flawlessly.

"ETA one hour." The navigator quipped.

Declus activated his terminal and check all the system of his ship. He mentally cursed himself for starting to get sloppy, he should have done it before jumping into FTL.

So far all systems were a go, weapons are primed, kinetic barriers are up, and the half dozen fighters that his cruiser had are armed and ready to launch.

Declus took deep breaths. This was the first time he'll be in action in command of his own ship. Second-guessing at a moment like this could be catastrophic but he could not shake the thoughts out of his mind.

Should he had regrouped with the rest of his squadron before jumping in? One of the things he hated about the assignment was the understandable lack of communication buoys extending this far into space from the Theta Cluster, it made his ship practically disconnected from the wider galaxy and made him unable to communicate with base until he returned. The only time that he could get updates was when they're within the range of the buoys which was just five light years away from their main base in the cluster, Relay 314 was seven light years away.

If he regrouped it would take time to consolidate and the relay might have been activated by then or have the perpetrators scurried away. Come to think of it whoever was trying to activate the relay was doing quite a poor job, it takes just an hour or so at most to power up a dormant relay with the right tools without any of the faint signals.

Declus suddenly realized something, what if the ones activating the relay never actually saw a Mass Relay before? They could be blindly stumbling about the relay like a child playing with fire not knowing what it is or its consequences. Could this actually be a first contact scenario? Preposterous. Something like that doesn't happen out of the blue especially when its in the ass-end of the galaxy, but what if it is exactly because of being in the ass-end of the galaxy that a species that are capable of deep space flight remained unknown.

He adjusted himself in his seat trying to find a comfortable position.

"Captain, exiting FTL in five minutes."

Declus nodded, hiding his thoughts behind a stoic face. Did time really fly that fast? He remembered the stories of veterans saying something that happened for just a few seconds felt like lasting minutes. Now though it looked like the opposite was true for him.

"Exiting in three… two… one…"

The humming suddenly ceased and Declus peered into his terminal, he checked the ship's systems once more to make sure everything was normal. He then switched to the sensors and his heart jumped up to his throat when it detected eight unidentified vessels clustered to one side of the Mass Relay.

The ship's scanners ran quick but found nothing in the database. Whatever those ships are they've never been seen before.

"Sensors, can you make a more in depth scan of the ships?"

"Can do sir."

Declus remained impassive. Can the ships truly be from an uncontacted species? He changed the display in his terminal from scanner to long range visual and was surprised again, he had never seen such ships in his life.

"Sir scanners are not picking up any Eezo footprint from the ships, in fact we are not detecting any kind of mass effect field at all sir." The sensors officer said.

Declus' heart raced even faster. This IS a first contact. Unknown ships without mass effect technology unknowingly attempt to activate a dormant relay, it sounded exactly like one of the novels he read in his spare time. In the novel the first contact was peaceful and the aliens became a powerful Turian ally that helped it destroy the Geth when they started venturing out of the Perseus Veil. Declus hoped these aliens would be as friendly as the ones he read.

He barely remembered the first contact classes he took in the naval academy, what he could remember being hammered again and again into his brain by the instructors was to never assume you can contact the other species through your computers. They could be some form of hyperintelligence that had advanced so much that computers to them are akin to some kind of forgotten ancient language, or a more primitive species that would not be able to decipher the signals they're receiving.

Declus was leaning towards the latter from the results of the scanner and looking at their ships, it had sleek lines and looked like some kind of aircraft that got lost in space. Calling it a proper space ship was an insult to ship designers throughout the galaxy, he doubt that they even have good FTL capability.

"Comms, try to hail the ships visually as well as through all possible bands. Weapons power the main gun down, we don't want to look hostile. And sensors set to passive only for now, they might misinterpret the active pings as an attack."

The chorus of yes sirs ran through the CIC as Declus waited impatiently in his seat. He definitely should have been more attentive in those first contact classes.

Seconds passed as his hails continued to be ignored. He started to see the ships clumsily move away from the Mass Relay and sighed, it looked like they're a primitive species after all.

Declus was about to commence the next step in a first contact scenario where the primitives do not understand the hails when the sensors officer suddenly cried. "Sir, two frigate-type ships just jumped out of FTL around us!"

 _Its a trap!_

Declus' heart was almost trying to vault out of his body. The primitives were waiting for him! He glanced at his terminal and saw the eight ships starting to accelerate away towards the frigate ahead of them far faster than the scanners and the ships' design led him to believe.

The sensors officer shouted once more. "Two ships, one to our upper front above the relay and another to our lower rear an eighth of a light second away!"

Declus grit his teeth, adrenalin rushing into his body. He remembered the stories about the Yahg and how they massacred the delegation that was sent to contact them. If these primitives wanted a fight they'll be facing a cruiser of the Turian Navy not some lightly armed first contact team.

"Weapons get that main gun back up and target that ship ahead. Helm once the enemy in front is destroyed I want the ship flipped around and have weapons target the ship to our back. Fighters are to deploy immediately and destroy the eight ships in front, they were the bait and you are to presume that they are armed so act accordingly."

 _Defiance_ lurched as the ship reoriented itself to direct the main gun towards the enemy ahead. Fighters were scrambled from its bays and the mass accelerator came to life firing a projectile half a percent the speed of light every two seconds.

Declus saw in his terminal that the enemy frigates were still maintaining their positions and have not begun to conduct any evasive maneuvers. Curious. Nevertheless he will not give the primitives time to organize themselves, for all he knew the primitives might simply be slow thinking and would gladly take that advantage.

Even though they were just a tenth of a light second away from the frigate, within the _Defiance_ 's effective range, the projectile still took almost ten seconds to reach the target, ten seconds that the enemy frigate did nothing.

"Its a hit sir!" Verrus exclaimed. "They don't have kinetic barriers, spirits the round just tore through the length of their ship!"

Declus grinned, his first ship kill! At this rate it'll be over in no time and he can get back to base and report his success. His glee was cut short when a realization set in, what if they were actually peaceful? Nah that couldn't be, he had more than enough evidence to defend himself that he attack in the name of self defence. No one in their right mind would pounce a Turian cruiser out of nowhere, especially one in patrol.

"Sir the other ship is starting to maneuver." Verrus informed.

Declus looked down to his terminal and confirmed his first officer's remark. The ship behind them was moving off to the left, presenting their broadsides at them. He was still arguing with himself if the enemy ship was going to open up with guns or with missiles when his terminal beeped furiously.

"Sir enemy ship has launched three missiles and are… spirits they're accelerating fast!"

Declus' eyes went wide when he saw the numbers in his screen. Spirits! How was it accelerating at such speeds? The forces would've ripped the missiles apart and inertial dampeners are not powerful enough to compensate that much force even with mass effect tech, unless the primitives had somehow cracked the code.

"Gunnery, is the GARDIAN online?"

"Yes sir and are already acquiring the targets."

"Good." Declus replied. No matter how fast the missiles were travelling, they could never come close to the speed of light and the GARDIAN could kill anything below it.

He waited until _Defiance_ finished turning over before ordering the main gun to start firing once more. This time though with the enemy ship maneuvering erratically his shots were not as accurate as he would like.

"Helm close the distance to a twentieth of a light second."

The closer they are the less time the enemy ship had to react to the main gun firing.

"Sir I'm getting some kind of interference between us and the enemy missiles." The gunnery officer informed. He had been tracking the missiles since their launch and was not just under halfway between the ships. "It looks like the missile have some kind of electronic warfare ability sir."

Declus groaned, the last thing he needed was to have the primitives damage his cruiser. "Maintain contact with the missiles and activate countermeasures when in range."

Half a minute passed by before the missile was finally within the GARDIAN's range. Declus thought nothing of it at first, sending just three missiles to attack a cruiser was bound to fail but he was once again surprised when the GARDIAN started missing its shots.

"Gunnery what in the spirit's name is happening?"

"I don't know sir!" The gunnery officer's voice quaked. "We're tracking and firing at it but it won't hit, it's as if the missiles weren't there!"

Declus' mandibles flared, it seemed they weren't as primitive as he first thought they would be.

"Gunnery continue trying, helm ahead full and give the GARDIANs the best angle."

He started to nervously tap his talons on the chair's armrests. The missiles were getting uncomfortably close and the GARDIAN still wasn't able to hit any of them.

"What's the status on the fighters?"

"They've destroyed five of the bait ships so far and are still in pursuit of the remaining three." Verrus replied curtly.

At least something was going well, Declus thought. The best case scenario now was to destroy all of the enemy ships present to prevent them from contacting their friends. If he accomplished that then the Turian Navy would have an easier time later on if need be.

Declus checked the sensors once more and noticed that the missiles were still not shot out by the GARDIAN and was now only a few seconds away from impact. Baffled by how the GARDIAN managed to miss very shot even though the missiles were practically in point blank range he shouted into the microphone, judging correctly that they'll hit his ship. "All hands brace for impact!"

 _Defiance_ shook violently when the three missiles hit its bow narrowly missing the mass accelerator. While the barriers were effective in preventing most of the missiles' kinetic energy from transferring to the ship's hull, some of it still bleed through to cause vibrations heavy enough that crewmen could be thrown about if unstrapped.

"Kinetic barriers are down sir! Main gun was also knocked offline!" Verrus informed the captain while he struggled to take in the damage reports.

The captain was amazed those missiles hit like a salvo from a cruiser. He had never seen missiles move like that let alone taking his kinetic barriers out with just three. Normally it would take a whole swarm of missiles to even get past a ship's GARDIAN let alone take its barriers out.

The situation was bad, judging by the size of the missile relative to the alien ship Declus deduced that it could hold far more than just a couple. He was about to order the fighters to divert when an exceptional news came from Verrus: one of the enemy ship's engines had been destroyed.

"Enemy had also stopped accelerating sir." Verrus tapped away in his seat. "it looks like we've damaged the rest of their engines and maybe even their reactor sir."

"Excellent Verrus." The captain cheered. "What about our main gun? When will it be online?"

Verrus was silent while he consulted the ship's VI. "In a few minutes sir, some of the electricals got rattled and the guys are putting it back in order."

"Very well. Helm take us in to point blank range, I want the GARDIAN to destroy their missile before they get too fast."

As _Defiance_ made its way to the stricken enemy ship Declus was finally able to breath easily. The whole engagement had just lasted a little over five minutes and now with a lucky shot he'll be able to board and capture the primitives in several minutes more.

Declus noticed that there were only three bait ships left and was about to order the fighters to return and rearm when bait ships suddenly vanished. Adrenalin shot back into the captain's body.

"Spirits! Did the bait ships enter FTL?"

"Yes sir. I detected a high energy discharge a fraction of a second before the ship entered FTL."

Declus cursed under his breath, he was so close to destroying them all. He ordered the fighters to return and focused his attention to the ship in front of them, still three minutes away.

"Verrus how long till our kinetic barriers are up?"

His first officer's mandibles moved ever so slightly. "We'll need to disengage to recharge sir. Barriers were totally drained and we're prioritizing recharging the GARDIANs sir."

"Negative Verrus switch it to the barriers, we saw their missiles going past the GARDIAN with ease. I'd rather have a barrier between us and them."

"Yes sir."

Declus switched his terminal to high-powered visual and saw the ship ahead of them missing an engine, he also saw the ship's rear to be a tangled mess probably from the engine exploding. He was thankful that his ship had kinetic barriers that would prevent shit like that from happening to him though he was puzzled as to how a species that was able to move faster than light don't have any shielding of any kind.

He was interrupted once again when his terminal blared. Blood drained from Declus' face when he saw the enemy ship firing off missile after missile, dozens of them all at once, all now accelerating towards him.

"Sir main gun is now online!"

Declus, too caught up in the moment, didn't even try to process who was talking to him. "Fire the gun now! I want that ship destroyed before the missiles get too close!"

The rhythmic thump of the mass accelerator returned as it launched projectile after projectile to a target just ten seconds away from impact.

Declus, still fixated on the image of the enemy ship hoping that it blew up just like the first one was euphoric when it finally disappeared from his screen. It only lasted a second though when he realized that the ship was not destroyed, in fact in entered FTL.

The captain saw that the missile salvo was just a minute away and his GARDIAN was still not fully recharged as well as having no barrier at all. It was then in the first time in his life he finally broke and panicked.

"Where the fuck are the fighters?"

"They're now docking sir, won't take long…"

"Get the fighters in now and prepare to move to FTL, destination back to base." Declus was not even trying to determine who he was talking to, as long as his orders were being followed his eyes were fixated at the falling range between him and the hundred missiles.

20 seconds… 15 seconds… The GARDIAN came online though was nowhere near its full power. 10 seconds…

"Sir fighters are in and ready to jump to FTL."

5 seconds…

"Jump NOW!"

His screen turned to the deep blue streaks of FTL travel as he lost visual with the incoming missiles.

Declus sank into his seat. He had been forced to retreat by a new species, a shameful display as well as panicking in the face of overwhelming odds. Thank the spirits that it looked like none of the bridge crew noticed it or he'll catch hell with morale.

The aliens don't even have mass effect technology in spirits' name and yet it looked as if they're more advanced in missile technology that the Citadel was. Declus now planned to return to the fleet and report what had just happened realizing that Admiral Victoril would most likely send a squadron to secure Relay 314 and the alien wreckages, the admiral would also try to find where those aliens came from and maybe even pay them a visit.

The captain of the battered _Defiance_ regained his calm as he gazed out to the lighted CIC, now secured from battlestations. Today's events were far more than he asked for, he simply wanted to see something happen at the relay not start a war with an uncontacted species. Oh well, whatever happened had already happened and it's no use to regret, he'll need to think about the future and what his role in it may be.

XXXXXXXXXX

UNS Norway SDD-051

Maintaining station 2 light-days from the Shanxi Megastructure

The soft bloom of trillions of stars served as a reminder to Commander Jonathan Peterson that space is a really, really big place. Gazing out of the bridge's narrow window he remembered a time in his childhood when he looked up to the stars from Eden Prime and wanted to become an astrophysicist.

Peterson smiled, remembering how that dream got crushed when he got to college and discovered he wasn't even close to being good enough in math to be any sort of physicist. Deciding on dropping out and enrolling in the UN Naval Academy instead turned out to be quite a good choice in hindsight.

He looked at his data pad and sighed thanking fuck that the navy got it out of their assess and finally gave Shanxi proper attention and sent additional ships. No longer were his men taxed close to their breaking point, instead they're now having a better time, one in line with the rest of the navy.

Peterson was also ecstatic that he was bumped up a notch, now he commanded three destroyers including his own. The two frigates earlier in his command were reassigned to Commander Xi Yun Lee's new flotilla, one of the many formed in the recent weeks amidst the reorganization.

He was pleasantly surprised that the navy actually sent the old heavy cruiser _United Nations_ as the flagship of the new Shanxi Squadron. Although the first heavy cruiser of the UNN (UN Navy) was already pushing fifty years it was still a force to be reckoned with. Built during the Great Interstellar War the _United Nations_ had far more history than any other ship in the navy, in fact it was the oldest ship still in active duty.

He was also thankful that Commodore Sir Arthur Decker had been placed in command of the squadron as the good commodore had the reputation in the navy for having quite a relaxed command style, something that suits Peterson perfectly.

His musings were interrupted when the communications officer suddenly spoke across him in the bridge. "Commander! We just received a UAB (Urgent Alert Beam) from _RV Midas_ that an unidentified vessel had dropped out of FTL thirty thousand kilometers from the megastructure."

Peterson was surprised on how the the vessel managed to pass through the destroyer screen. He had the three ships positioned in such a way that they could cover all approaches to the megastructure yet that ship flew right past them without even having their most sensitive warp detectors go off. The navy's newest contraption was supposed to be able to detect a ship going past in warp twenty light-days away.

"Commander a UAB from the _Tharsis_ and _New Zealand_ had just been received, they're verifying if we've also received _Midas'_ UAB."

Peterson grunted, this is turning out to be one hell of a day. "Tell them Condition Bravo is in effect, I want those research ships out of the way comms."

"Aye sir."

"Master Chief signal general quarters, ex-oh get your ass back to CIC , and comms get me a UAB back to Shanxi informing Commodore Decker of the situation."

The 'aye sirs' replied before the klaxon hooted, signalling general quarters.

"All hands prepare for micro-jump." Peterson spoke into the microphone, he buckled himself into his seat and waited for the replies from _Tharsis_ and _New Zealand_.

"Sir _Tharsis_ and _New Zealand_ confirms Condition Bravo."

Good. Condition Bravo calls for his ship and _Tharsis_ to immediately jump to the megastructure in the event that a ship entered the exclusion zone, a three light-day bubble around the megastructure, while there were scientists present on the site. The research vessels would quickly evacuate the location and afterwards the navy will attempt to subdue the offending ship and apprehend its crew with the ship being impounded and the crew charged with trespassing an active government research space.

 _Tharsis_ would warp almost directly above the megastructure while _Norway_ would stay about seventy thousand kilometers away in support. The third ship will make for a new position twenty light-days away on the trajectory that the trespassing ship used. It will try and identify if any other vessels were inbound in order to give the two ships around the megastructure early warning since it was impossible to intercept a ship in warp.

Peterson was at a lost on why someone would try such a thing. Don't they know the navy would come down on them hard? Well it could be some audacious journalist trying to get a scoop, they aren't known to be deterred by government warnings on classified materials. Then again journalists shouldn't be able to get a ship that could penetrate the screen undetected.

"Helm to all, micro-jump in three… two… one…'

The view on the bridge's windows changed in an instant from the black of space to blue with streaks of white and back to black. Looking down at his terminal he confirmed that they have completed the micro-jump and are now just short of seventy thousand kilometers from the megastructure, the helmswoman being on point.

He then switched his terminal the scanners and was relieved to see the eight research vessels starting to move away from the megastructure and begun charging their warp capacitors. He went on to look at the initial scan of the unidentified vessel and was horrified when saw that it was far larger than his own, almost six hundred meters long to his three hundred and five meters.

"Jesus fucking christ what the hell is that?" He heard his XO announced in surprise through the captain's intraship comms. It seems that she had also seen the results of the scan from her post in the CIC.

"I have no idea ex-oh." Peterson replied, himself shocked. "Comms get me Commander Martinez, and get those research vessels out of here NOW."

The situation was grave, he was expecting a small skiff-like ship or even a corvette, not a battleship sized behemoth. Condition Bravo was a mistake, it assumed that the offending vessel was a human one not alien. In fact none of the Conditions even considered the possibility of aliens even though the megastructure was clearly alien in origin. Immediately warping in two destroyers to meet a new species was never going to be a good idea.

He examined the second more in depth scan and discovered that the alien vessel had a massive four hundred and fifty meter long gun-like structure embedded through the ship itself. Surmising it as some form of railgun, something his own ship has albeit far smaller, the ship didn't look too remarkable other than its size and its wing-like structure, and the fact it somehow penetrated his destroyer screen.

"Sir, Commander Martinez is on the line."

Peterson switched to the comms in his terminal and was greeted by Martinez's worried face. "Commander Peterson, this doesn't look good."

"I know Martinez, shit." he murmured.

The alien vessel was now between _Norway_ and the _Tharsis_ with the scientists trapped in the middle. Minimizing Martinez in his terminal, he looked at all the ships' position and could see that the alien ship was only thirty thousand kilometers from the megastructure, forty thousand kilometers in front of him.

Peterson switched back to Martinez, his hand scratched a small stubble under his chin. "Well Martinez, got any options?"

"We can try to stand down and move away from the ship to not provoke them from doing something rash, they could have some kind of advanced sensor that…." Martinez's face suddenly twisted as he looked away from his terminal in a panic. "Helm ahead full n…"

The other commander suddenly vanished from Peterson's terminal, replaced by a black screen. "Comms what the hell just happened?"

His XO was the one who replied. "Commander the _Tharsis_ had just been destroyed!"

"What? How?"

"We don't know sir, there was a large energy discharge form the unknown ship and _Tharsis_ just suddenly exploded… shit the unknown ship is starting to maneouver sir."

Peterson saw that the alien ship was flipping around, presumably to point its main gun at him. "Helm evasive maneuvers now, CIC get me a firing solution on that ship and arm an EW (Electronic Warfare) and two Claymores. The alien ship is now designated as contact one."

A three meter wide, forty meter tall Armoured Launch Box (ALB) opened its blast doors to the vacuum of space revealing a missile of the same size inside. The ALBs were embedded throughout the front half of the destroyer with a spacing of five meters between each launcher including three meters of additional armour. The ALBs were also staggered in a broadside configuration in order to decrease the width of the destroyer, it was done so that a hit to one of the ALB would not compromise the whole ship. The remaining space was used as walkways for the crew to be able to conduct regular inspection on the ALBs.

A pair of magnetic rails straddled the inner part of the ALB and when activated launched the missile out and away from the ship. The missile then used its RCS to orient itself towards the target vector and initiated its inertial dampeners before igniting its single Rocketdyne RS-105 main engine causing the missile to accelerate gradually at twenty gees per second topping off at three hundred gees. Without inertial dampeners the missile would have destroyed itself the moment the engine was activated.

In order to prevent enemy Electronic Warfare Suites (EWS) from intercepting signals between the missile and the mothership the missiles are of the "fire and forget" type where target instructions were uploaded into the missile by the CIC and launched with no additional input from the mothership afterwards.

Unless specific maneuver instructions were uploaded to the missile, its onboard AI would begin maneuvering the missile in a way that would make it harder to be detected and be destroyed by enemy point defence systems (PDS) as it made its way towards the target.

It was not a perfect system but was the best the engineers could do with current technology, unless the alien ship in front showed them otherwise.

"Missiles armed and ready. Contact one has started to have the energy discharges again sir, I think they're firing the main gun." The gunnery chief reported.

"Very well ex-oh, missiles launch." Peterson ordered. Looking at the scanners he could see that there were massive energy spikes coming from the alien vessel, spikes that contained almost as much energy as the _Norway's_ fusion reactor could produce in a day. "Helm try to maintain the range between us and contact one."

 _Norway_ jerked as the helmsman placed down maximum acceleration moving the ship in a circular path around the megastructure and changing its orbital inclination randomly.

"One… two… three… all missiles away sir." The XO reported.

The EW missile activated its countermeasures ten seconds into flight, it consisted of jamming, decoys, and false flight paths to confuse enemy scanners. Two seconds behind the EW missile were the two Claymores, they're what are called "dumb missile" wherein their payload simply consisted of a five hundred kilogram solid block of steel.

The manner that all three missiles deal damage to the enemy ship was to simply smash into it. The EW missile, having less mass as most of the volume was taken up by the electronics, would have less kinetic energy on impact compared to the Claymores. Either way by the time they hit the alien ship they'll be moving at over five hundred kilometers per second and anything that got hit by it would instantly be vaporised.

Even so, Peterson had no idea what the aliens were capable of, nor what their weaknesses were. Right now his main objective was to distract the alien ship long enough for the research vessels to escape. He looked down to his terminal and his hands balled into fists, a minute and a half after launch and the missiles were just halfway to the target and four of the research vessels were already destroyed by some kind of space fighter-things that were hot on their tails. He still had a minute more before the research vessels' warp capacitors powered up fully and warp them away from this massacre, a minute which he saw his ship's survival becoming lower and lower.

A terse minute passed and Peterson continued to see continuous energy spikes coming from contact one, firing at rate of one every two seconds he was astonished as to what type of railgun it was as well as how they were able to cycle their gun so quickly.

Thirty seconds from impact and he saw the energy spikes increase further as his scanners told him the enemy point defence systems activated, not that they'll do anything. The EM missile was working perfectly, creating phantom missiles as well as jamming the enemy sensors.

He saw the three missiles closing into contact one and in a flash disappeared.

"All direct hits sir!" His XO exclaimed, elated.

Peterson too was elated when he saw the three missiles smashing into the alien ship but he quickly sobered up when he realized that they did nothing to the ship, in fact it didn't even leave a dent.

It was at that moment when _Norway_ suddenly heaved as a large explosion rumbled through the bridge. Peterson was thrown about in his seat with the straps painfully digging into his skin.

The bridge's red light light momentarily flashed signalling that the ship's reactor had been damaged and the ship's electronics were now using power from the batteries.

"Sir engine one was destroyed! We've sustained heavy damage in the aft engineering and engines two and three have been shut down to prevent a meltdown." Through the noise Peterson was unable to make out who notified him, in any event this day was getting worse by the minute, being unable to maneuver his ship was a sitting duck waiting for the alien gun to rip it apart.

"Sir the three remaining research vessel have just entered warp." His comms officer said, relief evident from his voice.

At least something went somewhat right today, Peterson thought. "Damage control, give me a status." His eyes were straining to see anything from his terminal, now only displaying the ship's course.

A hazy disembodied voice from somewhere in the ship replied. "Engine one is a total lost, two and three are damaged but I think we can get it working in ten minutes. We have dozens of hull breaches in the aft but most of them are in the bunks and the bulkheads have been sealed. Eve's been trying to assess the damage on our reactors but so far its been minimal."

"Okay, okay." Peterson switched off the intercom and eyed the helmswoman. "Helm charge up the warp capacitors, we're out of here."

His primary mission was done, now the thing left if for his ship to escape. The thought of breaking a cardinal rule of the navy to never launch all missiles in a single salvo quickly went to his mind but looking at the situation, breaching a taboo was the least of his worries.

"XO, prepare to launch all missiles."

There was silence in the line for several seconds before his XO replied. "All the missiles sir?"

"Aye ex-oh, all the missiles. They might have some kind of force field around their ship but I doubt that thing's going to take a beating from a couple of nukes."

This time, his XO replied curtly and proceeded with the launch procedures deep in the bowels of the ship. Peterson looked about the bridge and was pleased that his men were still professionally doing their jobs, then it hit him: they weren't being fired upon anymore.

He glanced at his terminal and discovered that the contact had actually ceased firing. Maybe it was actually damaged by his missiles or they've run out of ammunition. Whatever happened he was determined to not let this moment slip.

The _Norway_ was armed with a hundred and ten missiles: fifteen EW, fifty claymores, forty shredders, and five nukes. Looking at how the alien ship was unable to intercept any of the missiles that he sent earlier, he was confident that a salvo of over a hundred warheads would be able to easily kill the contact.

But he once again thought back to the taboo. The main reason stopping captains from simply launching their full complement of missiles before warping away was the fact each missile was extremely expensive and reloading the launchers took practically forever as each of the ALB needs to be removed and replaced by a new ALB one by one in dock. Even with the docks working overtime a destroyer with a hundred launchers still took two days to be completely replenished. A heavy cruiser with hundreds of ALBs tend to take at least a week.

Because of these restrictions, battles tend to rage for hours as both sides launch sporadic initial salvoes probing weak points in the enemy defences from a million kilometers away. As the two opposing fleets slowly drift towards each other information of their missile's progress returned and using the data retrieved the respective commanders slowly increase the volume of missile launches culminating at an all-out assault at around the seventy five thousand kilometer mark.

If for some miraculous reason none of the fleets broke off but instead continued pressing on the battle enters the stage where which most commanders dread: the close quarters battle where railguns and massive laser arrays reign supreme.

That was the way battles were fought during the Great Interstellar War. A lot can change in fifty years and as far as Peterson was concerned change was staring at them right in the face and he doesn't think breaking the cardinal rule would be such a bad idea at all.

"Sir the warp capacitors are charged and ready."

Peterson nodded at the helmswoman. He thought of writing a commendation for her and maybe even a promotion that she definitely earned today.

"All missiles armed and ready commander." The XO said.

Peterson hesitated for a moment. What if it only took one nuke to destroy the contact and not al of his missiles? What if none of them had any effect on the contact but instead provided the aliens with information on how humanity fought? He grunted and removed the thoughts from his mind. "All missiles launch."

A deep rumble echoed through the ship as it launched its full complement for the first time. Peterson saw through the bridge's window dozens of missiles being flung out of the ship, rotated, then fired its main engine up and in seconds was already farther than his eye could see.

When he was satisfied that the missiles were on course, he ordered the helmswoman to go ahead with the warp procedure. The ship reoriented itself using RCS and pointed its bow towards a random speck of space two and a half light-years away from the megastructure, it wouldn't be wise to lead the aliens directly back to the planet.

As the warp capacitors discharged its energy into the warp drive the ship entered Warp, bending space-time around it while still retaining its original velocity as well as vector within the bubble. It is exactly because of this that warping directly beside a planet was considered dangerous and insane as a ship that had a velocity of several hundred kilometers a second could easily crash right into the planet the moment they exit FTL.

"Commander warp condition is green. We're away sir."

Peterson let out a heavy sigh and didn't realize how hard he was clutching the armrest until he started typing at his terminal, his knuckles white and his breaths heavy. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead into his eyes causing him to wince as the full realization of what just happened sank in.

They had just engaged a single alien vessel and lost so much.

He saw the aliens have technology that humanity doesn't. He saw how they fight, saw how they move. They need to get back to Shanxi as fast as they can to warn the UN of what just occurred and maybe stall what could be a forthcoming invasion.

"Comms send a UAB to _New Zealand_ when we leave warp and tell them to return to Shanxi, we're done here."

A soft cynical laugh emerged from his throat. All he wanted to do was to be a ship's captain and now here he is warning humanity of a possible alien threat. He might as well start writing diary entries to be included in his autobiography in the future, that is if he actually survived.

XXXXXXXXXX

 ** _Codex_**

 _The Great Interstellar War was an interstellar conflict that lasted between the United Nations and the Systems Alliance (SA) from 18 May 2105 to 31 December 2111. It was caused by the secession of the SA from the UN and was the largest and most destructive war in history eclipsing the Second World War by orders of magnitude. The war was the first to have nuclear weapons used in battle as well as large scale orbital bombardment of planets and moons. It involved every single nation on both sides resulting in over two hundred and fifty million deaths and hundreds of millions more injured in the six years of conflict and was finally ended when the UN captured the last SA world of Arcadia forcing the SA to capitulate. The war transformed the UN from being an arbiter of nations into the first true supranational government in existence._

 _UNS United Nations SCA-001 is the lead and only ship in her class. Built in the waning years of the Great Interstellar War she was the first heavy cruiser of the UNN and its largest warship until the advent of the Sol-class battleships three decades later. The United Nations was the flagship of Grand Admiral Obasanjo in the invasion of Arcadia, it was instrumental in the destruction of the last SA defence fleet paving the way for a ground invasion._

 _An Urgent Alert Beam (UAB) is a beam of information that is sent using a ship's on board Hypercomms. It is capable of sending limited amount of information three light-years away from its source instantaneously using Hyperspace Communications Technology (HCT). Because of the restrictions of the ship's power source a UAB can only send a total of 10 megabytes of information in a single beam, afterwards the on-board Hypercomms dedicated capacitors must recharge which typically takes about half a minute before another beam can be sent._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

XXXXXXXXXX

Shanxi Hypercomms Terminal

Shanxi Space Elevator

People were always amazed when he said he worked in the Shanxi Hypercomms Terminal, they almost always assumed that he was some kind of genius in order to work in the place that humanity's interstellar communications network depended on. They never suspected that François Moreau was simply an electrician fixing broken lights and the like, not some brilliant engineer who had PHDs stacked on top of one another.

He had been working in the Shanxi Hypercomms Terminal ever since it opened three years ago and would be working at the station for the foreseeable future. It was hard leaving his family back on earth especially when he knew that his five year old son Jeff had Vrolik's syndrome but Shanxi being a new colony of the UN, he was getting paid more than enough to cover Jeff's medical expenses.

At the moment François was fixing a broken outlet in one of the suites of the dormitories. It blew out when somebody plugged an octopus chord and overloaded it almost causing a fire, over a century of electrical use and people still don't take safety seriously even in space.

He stood up and stretched his back. It cracked a few times and he exhaled deeply while chuckling to himself, just thirty eight and he already felt like an old man. He drew his eyes from the outlet to to the large window just above it and admired the view of the planet below, its slightly reddish hue broken up by large seas here and there. Even after all these years he was still not used to seeing a planet where the bodies of water made up less than land.

A glint off into space caught his attention. He squinted his eyes trying to see what it was and was surprised when he saw three of the research vessels moving in to dock with the Shanxi Space Elevator directly below him. He remembered hearing eight vessels going out to the megastructure three days ago but he could most definitely count only three. Maybe the others were simply not done with the megastructure yet and these ones were simply sent back first.

François shrugged, none of his business what those scientists were doing. He crouched down and went back to fixing the outlet, determined to finish it before lunch. Replacing some of the wires and after testing that the outlet was working once more he quickly returned his things into the toolbox and stood up.

He took his phone out to contact the owner that the outlet was fixed while admiring the view. Finishing the call he packed all his things up and was ready to leave the suite when another glint from space interrupted him. Thinking it to be the rest of the research vessels he took his phone out to take a picture of the ships as they arrive, Jeff likes to see ships.

Several seconds pass by, when he was finally able to see the ships as ships and not some twinkle reflecting light from the star, he was surprised that there were only two of them… and that they look nothing like the ships earlier. Boxy appearance, big triple engines, a small bridge just protruding from the hull close to the rear, dozens of broadside missile launchers, and three railgun mounts at the top and bottom as well as several smaller PDS mounts. He realized that he was looking at a _Norway_ -class destroyer.

François was ecstatic. Even though he had seen those ships hundreds of times already they never ceased to amaze him. He switched his phone to camera mode and zoomed in to get a better picture, Jeff would really love to see this.

The destroyers were already in their final docking procedures as they've cut off their main engines and are simply using their RCS to fine tune the movements of the ships, as such François was able to get excellent pictures of the ships, his twenty megapixel camera capturing every ridge and bump of the hull.

When the destroyers were close enough that he didn't need to zoom his camera anymore he had a startling discovery, one of the destroyers had one of its engine shot off with its aft section a tangled mess.

He was puzzled on how it came to be. Could some micro-meteorite in deep space hit the ships? There had been news recently that scientists were working on some type of shield that could prevent such occurrences from happening, after all even the tiniest pebble moving at high enough speeds could punch through any material humanity had invented so far.

It could be some kind of internal accident where the engines failed, but somebody would have to fuck up so bad for this to be the result.

It could've also been attack by pirates. He had never actually seen one this far out in space, most of them tend to stick in the shipping lanes within systems like between Eden Prime and Novgorod. Well, even if it was a pirate attack he doubt that they have enough firepower to actually defeat a destroyer, more so a _Norway_ -class.

François took his last pictures before the ships disappeared beneath the window, entering last stages of docking which was to actually connect with the space elevator without bumping into it or into other ships.

He proceeded back to electricians' office two levels down and placed his equipment into storage. He checked the time and was relieved that it was still a quarter to twelve, enough to catch up with some paperwork before lunch.

He moved to the small desk that he called his own and started inputting his day's work into the computer, on where the problem was, how long it took him to repair, and what resources he used fix the problem. He checked the clock in his computer after a while and was surprised that it was already a quarter past twelve.

François quickly saved the document, got off his desk, and walked briskly to the biometric time recorder to log out. The cafeteria was shared between the workers of the Hypercomms station and the space elevator so he was not surprised when he met Bob in the hallway. His friend had been working in the docks below for just over two years and was surprisingly as enthusiastic as he was about ships.

"Yow François, how you doin'?" The big American slapped his shoulders hard enough to hurt a bit.

"I'm fine Bob." François replied. He rubbed his shoulders lightly feeling the sting slowly increasing. "Say, did you see the two destroyers at the docks? One of them lost an engine."

"Yeah I did, in fact it was the _Norway_ that got fucked up." He looked around suspiciously and lowered his voice. "I was assigned to the _Norway's_ berth and saw the damage up close, boy did they got fucked up real bad. Navy guys shooed us away after we docked the ship and they placed the berth in lockdown, not allowing anyone to come close. Fuck, they even got a perimeter several corners from the berth itself."

François was surprised at what he was hearing. Lockdown? Perimeter? What the hell happened to the _Norway_? "Weren't there supposed to be three of them at the megastructure? The _Norway, Tharsis,_ and _New Zealand?_ "

"Yeah they were, heard rumours that the _Tharsis_ got blown up by an alien ship though." Bob shrugged. "Don't really trust these rumours, last time a big one spread it was that a fucking Shanxi virus got loose in the station."

Ah yes, he remembered that episode eleven months ago. Quite funny thinking back now but it was a big scare at the time, big enough that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) sent teams to the space elevator to check if it was actually true.

Going back to the subject at hand François asked bob. "Did you see how bad the damage was?"

Bob whistled. "Boy it was really really fuck up. I mean, shit, the whole top engine was gone and the lower two was pretty damaged too. Jesus the whole aft section of the ship was a fucking mess, I don't even know how they're going to fix that."

François nodded silently. They arrived at the cafeteria and quickly got themselves plates before falling in line. He got himself a small bowl of soup with mashed potatoes and beef while Bob got some pasta. They went to one of the empty tables and took a seat.

Before François started to chow down he overheard the guys from the table beside them speaking. "…saw the captain of the _Norway_ being led out by escorts."

One of his friends gasped. "Do you think he's getting arrested? What the hell even happened to their ship?"

The third one chimed in. "The whole naval section of the space-ev got placed under lockdown, I mean damn I was just visiting a friend and they kicked me out like I was a squatter."

François took a sip of his soup, deep in thought on what was actually happening. Everything was becoming more and more surreal by the minute. He went on to silently chew his food when an announcement from the station's PA system made him look up.

 _'Attention all station personnel. A memo has just been released by the UNN that Naval Station Shanxi-Kunming is off limits to non-naval personnel starting at one pee-em today until further notice. Any space-ev personnel who are assigned to the NSS will receive a special clearance shortly. Thank you.'_

The two friends looked at each other, Bob spoke first. "Damn, shit's getting real huh?"

François nodded as he took in another mouthful. "Whatever it is it won't stay secret for long." He then pointed to a pair seated at the far end of the canteen. "That's CBS isn't it?"

Bob looked behind and nodded. "Yep. They've been here since last week interviewing us about Shanxi and shit."

He turned to face François and whispered. "You know, after that announcement those two would definitely be snooping around trying to get something. Wanna fuck around with them?"

His friend just shrugged. "Well I'm just an electrician."

XXXXXXXXXX

Naval Station Shanxi-Kunming

Shanxi Space Elevator

The light was dim, flickering even. The room small with a simple steel table in the middle flanked by a pair of sturdy steel chairs. Two small round cameras on opposite corners of the ceiling blinked its red light menacingly as a ceiling fan slowly circulate the stale air. A two-way mirror was to one side of the room and a heavy titanium bulkhead door separated it from the outside world.

Commander Jonathan Peterson would have laughed the room off as a stereotypical Hollywood interrogation room except for the facts that he was actually in it, and the lingering iron-rich smell of blood telling him it had been used recently. He was the suspect and as the titanium doors swung open it revealed his interrogators: Commodore Sir Arthur Decker himself and an aide.

"Good afternoon Commander." The commodore nodded to his prisoner as the door slowly swung close, its locks latching into place creating an airtight seal.

Peterson stood up and saluted. Although he was obviously confined here he was technically not a prisoner, or so he was told by his 'escorts'.

"At ease commander." Decker and his aide took the seats across Peterson before motioning him to sit too. "I'm terribly sorry we have to conduct this business in such an unsatisfactory location. This IS the only soundproof room that I know of in this station and one that I am sure the only recording devices in this room are ours."

Peterson nodded in understanding. They could've done this in the commodore's office but then again it may be bugged by somebody. Information that he was about to reveal was deemed classified in the highest form.

"So commander, can you kindly narrate to me what actually happened around the megastructure?"

Peterson took a deep breath, closing his eyes to clear his mind and resigned to himself that he will tell every single detail that he would remember from the disaster.

The commodore and his aide listen intently jutting down notes with a pen and paper, something Peterson barely even saw anyone do anymore. It told him that they deemed the information so important that it would be safer that they have physical copies of it instead of virtual ones, something that could be hacked from afar.

Exhausting what memories his brain could recall he finally stopped after almost half an hour. He eyed the two men across the table and saw them finishing their notes before abruptly standing up.

"Thank you for your time commander, you'll be transferred to a more… appropriate room as we confer with what we learned today." Decker walked over to the door, his aide following close behind.

The titanium doors swung open and the two stepped out and signalled Peterson to follow them. Outside the interrogation room stood his earlier 'escorts' as well as a young new face.

"Lieutenant Junior Grade Rajesh Jha here would be accompanying you to your quarters and provide you with anything that you might need."

So basically have the LTJG monitor him, Peterson thought bitterly. "Of course sir, thank you sir."

"Carry on then commander." Decker returned a salute.

Peterson watched the commodore go his way and turned to the young Jha. "Lead me to it then jay-gee."

The young lieutenant crisply saluted before executing a parade-level about face.

 _Show off._

The lieutenant and his escorts led him down several corridors, up a few levels with the elevator, and another set of corridors before finally arriving to the room.

"Here you are sir." Jha said in a surprisingly heavy cowboy accent. He tapped his keycard at the lock opening the door and handed Peterson a small bottle of wine, from where Jha hid it from Peterson's view he had no idea. "With the commodore's compliments."

Peterson accepted the token gift and thanked the lieutenant. Entering the room he was quite amazed on how spacious it actually was compared to his quarters aboard the _Norway_. He placed the bottle down on the coffee table and turned around to see Jha silently waiting by the door.

"We'll just be outside if the commander has any questions or requests."

Peterson's brow furrowed, that would mean his escorts were outside to prevent him from roaming around. "That's all for now jay-gee."

Jha nodded, he gave another crisp salute before closing the door and leaving Peterson alone.

The commander went to the closet and found they have placed sweatpants and t-shirt exactly his size, not a coincidence if Decker's already planned this out. He proceeded to the head to change and afterwards plopped down on the fluffy single bed and in no time was fast asleep. His exhaustion finally overcoming him eight hellish hours after the 'incident' as they called it.

He finally woke up several hours later to the sound of the doorbell buzzing. Groggily he got out of the bed, its fluffiness fighting against the increasingly irritating buzzer. He walked over to the door still half asleep and opened it. "What do you want?"

In front of him stood not the lieutenant but instead was the commodore. The sight of the taller blonde man immediately sobered Peterson up as he quickly gave a salute.

"At ease commander, I'm just here for a visit." Decker curiously looked past Peterson. "May I come in?"

"Certainly sir!"

He let Decker in and quickly close the door behind when he realized that it was to be a one-on-one talk, his escorts standing motionless outside in their hard suits.

The two officers walked over to the coffee table and sat down on couches opposite one another.

"Do you want coffee sir?"

"Yes, black if you would please."

Peterson went to get the drinks from the automated coffee maker and returned with two steaming cups. He placed them both on the table and Decker reached out and got his.

"We compared your testimony with your crew, as well as the ship's AI records and found nothing amiss." Decker took a slow sip, savouring its taste. "Though I wouldn't say what you did was the smartest move, hindsight is always twenty-twenty yes?"

"Yes sir."

Decker took another sip. "For now you and your crew would be confined to the station while _Norway_ gets patched up enough that you can get back to Earth."

Peterson's eyebrow peaked at that statement. "How long would it take sir?"

"Engineers told me they'll have it ready to sail in about a week days. It really did a number on you didn't it?"

"Yeah."

Peterson could remember vividly when he was finally able to thoroughly check his ship after the incident, twenty four killed in action and eight wounded out of a crew of a hundred and twenty. A steep price to pay for his mistake.

"It could have been far worse commander. It was because of your quick actions that three research vessels survived."

Peterson was surprised at what Decker said. It was as if Decker could read his mind.

The commodore finally finished his cup and placed it back onto the table. "Have faith commander, you'll be on your way in just a few days while I need to contend with this." He gave Peterson a soft smile. "It'll be alright, none of us saw it coming. Goodness none of us even though it was possible but here we are."

Decker stood up and straightened his uniform, Peterson standing up a second later. "I don't think you'll be court martialed and if they do I'll vouch for you."

Peterson returned a smile. "Thank you very much sir. It's more than what I could ask for."

The commodore nodded. "Very well commander thank you for having me and the coffee was quite delightful if I may say so myself."

After exchanging some more pleasantries Decker finally left the room leaving Peterson alone once more. He sat down a plush chair in front of a small desk and sank into it, savouring its comfortableness. He turned the room's computer on and started surfing the internet trying to get his mind to stop thinking about his fate when he returned to Earth.

He browsed his social media, surprised that he wasn't locked out of anything given his situation. He then took a quick look at the news and saw a headline: _SA terrorists in Sirius Prime finally captured!_ He scrolled past without even thinking, Sirius Prime was a long long way from here.

After a couple of hours he finally got tired and turned the computer off, switching instead to the television and turning it to some random music channel to have some kind of ambient sound in the room. He lay in the bed trying to go to sleep but instead have his mind racing.

Was this the end of his career? He had caused the deaths of hundreds of people and fucked up a first contact. Even if it wasn't the end of his career he'll surely never get another command as big as a destroyer, corvette maybe but he'll most likely be limited to staff positions ashore. But, if his actions actually started a interstellar was in an alien species then his life is as good as over.

People would want to blame someone for such a catastrophe and he's right up there front and center with everything to blame and nothing to defend himself with. If it got to that level not only was his life ruined but also his family's as well, maybe even his friends.

He turned in the bed and for the first time in his adult life, wept.

XXXXXXXXXX

United Nations Headquarters

Geneva, Switzerland

Secretary-General Park Gui Hei screamed into her phone. "For fuck's sake Kowalczyk the Balkans were your responsibility, how the hell did you make the clusterfuck even worse?! All the EU peacekeeping mission needed to do was to keep the peace and now they've gone and murdered Serbs?"

The Commissioner of the European Union replied, exasperated. "Madame we are doing all we can to resolve the situation…"

"You had been resolving it for the last hundred years and it's still not settled!" Park interrupted him. "I'm giving you a month to fix this shit or I'll send UN Peacekeepers down there instead!"

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, the most powerful person in humanity, hanged Kowalczyk up and threw her phone down on the table. She stressfully rubbed her temples as she reached one hand out to the computer to read the report once more.

Three Serbians killed by EU Peacekeepers. Unknown motive, possibly smuggling related. Protests flaring up in major cities. Everything the past four or so secretary-generals tried to do vanished in a single day.

The Balkan region had always been a headache to anyone even remotely linked to it. It had been that way ever since the Ottoman Empire of the twentieth century collapsed and over two hundred years later the problem had yet to be solved.

Being just seven hundred kilometers from Geneva it was a disgrace that such a powerful entity that controlled fifteen worlds and almost eighteen and a half billion souls was still unable placate an area smaller than Turkey. Turkey! The country right beside the shitshow and the one whose predecessor started it all!

Park groaned and closed the file, opening Youtube instead to listen to some music and cool down before she had her meeting with the UN Armed Forces' (UNAF) top brass.

People always had the illusion that once humanity was finally under a single world government prejudices, racism, extremism, and nationalism would vanish overnight. Park was learning the hard way that even after half a century of effective control by the UN conflicts that had started way before the League of Nations was even conceived had a nasty way of flaring up even in the most peaceful of times.

A small pop-up on the monitor interrupted her musings. It was time for the meeting.

Park shut the computer off and collated the notes in her phone containing all the things to be discussed: controlling the aggressive expansion of both the navy and the army.

Ever since the end of the Great Interstellar War the UNN and UNA had constantly been downsized, preferring instead to have a large reserve force that could be called up in times of crisis rather than a large and expensive regular force. It was necessary in the immediate aftermath of the war as resources were needed to be allocated in the massive reconstruction of cities and worlds.

It was only ten years ago that the armed forces finally started to clamour for expansion, reasoning that they were far too small to be able to effectively patrol the trade routes between the planets as well as fight a resurgent Systems Alliance with attacks becoming bolder and bolder every year.

The suicide bombing in Sirius Prime three months ago was their boldest yet. It was the first time they struck a core world and left dozens dead. Thankfully the terrorists responsible were captured just yesterday and are already on their way to Earth for trial.

Park got out of her office and went down the gleaming headquarters building to hitch a ride in the monorail. What most people didn't know about the UN HQ in Geneva was the fact more than half of the sprawling complex were dug underneath the Jura Mountains to the north-west of the city. It served as the military headquarters of UN's military while the parts of the complex that were built above ground served as the political headquarters.

Because of its size it took the secretary-general a two minute ride in the monorail, another turbo-lift, and a further set of brightly lit hallways before she finally arrived in a small heavily guarded nondescript room several hundred meters beneath the mountain.

Going through routine security clearance, she entered into an airlock before proceeding into the room and saw that they were already waiting for her.

Grand Admiral Jack Obasanjo, head of the fifteen hundred ship strong navy. He was the grandson of former Grand Admiral Mobutu Obasanjo, defender of Earth and the hero of Arcadia during the Great Interstellar War. Because of it some people accused the navy of nepotism but in Park's eyes Grand Admiral Jack Obasanjo certainly earned it having worked his way up from the bottom becoming the oldest person to attain the rank at seventy five.

Grand Marshal Lila Nguyễn, head of the twenty million men strong army and the first female grand marshal in UN history. Distinguishing herself in the counter-insurgency campaigns after the Great Interstellar War she rapidly rose through the ranks and became the youngest person to hold the position at just fifty three.

Finally, seated between the the two was Secretary of War Helmut Pfeiffer. The puffy German too was a veteran of the counter-insurgencies in the aftermath of the Great Interstellar War and was appointed to the post by the Security Council after retiring from the army. He was the direct link between the War Department comprising of the army and navy, and the secretary-general herself.

"Madame." Pfeiffer stood up to greet Park, the other two brass following suit.

"Good morning gentlemen, please take a seat." Park nodded back politely before taking a seat beside the hollow square table, its center containing a holographic projector.

"Now before we start the Security Council wants to congratulate Grand Marshal Nguyễn and the army special forces in finally capturing those SA terrorists responsible for the bombing in Sirius Prime three months ago." Park turned to Nguyễn and gave her a soft smile, the smile that won her votes.

"Thank you madame." Nguyễn replied. "Though the Siriusian police force should have most of the credit as they were the ones who tracked them down, my guys just came in and swept them away."

"Nevertheless that is one more terror cell gone. I'll be making the information public after this meeting is adjourned. For now…" Park got her phone from a small purse that she took everywhere and transferred some files to the hologram's computer, the projector in the center of the table coming to life.

It projected four semi-translucent screens, once for each person, and displayed the data that would be the center of the discussion. Park was still perplexed to the reason of installing such an expensive equipment when they could've bought four normal monitors from a random appliance store at less than a tenth of the price. But hey, it was installed over ten years ago and not worth the hassle thinking too deeply about.

"I trust you've seen this data so much you've practically memorized them already?" Park inquired cheerfully.

The three all affirmed and smiled back at the quip.

"Okay then." She turned to Grand Admiral Obasanjo. "The Security Council is halting the construction of the third Sol-class battleship, _but_ we'll let you keep half of the funds to build more frigates and light cruisers."

Obasanjo sighed. He knew it was a losing proposition but hoped anyway that the third one could finally be completed after being suspended multiple times over two decades. "Very well madame, we'll start drafting a request and verify the requirements."

"Thank you grand admiral." Park turned over to Nguyễn. "Grand marshal, I …"

The sudden opening of the airlock and the entrance of one of Obasanjo's aide interrupted Park. The aide quietly went over to the grand admiral and whispered something as he gave Obasanjo a memory stick.

Obasanjo bit his lip, concern growing on his face. The aide left a moment later as the meeting came to a screeching halt, its members staring at the grand admiral for the reason of the interruption.

Park was curious as to why the aide needed to manually give a memory stick to the grand admiral. It's not like the room doesn't have any outside connection, in fact she thought it had the best connection in the world.

Obasanjo cleared his throat and waved the memory stick. "I had just been informed that the information in it had been declared Classified Zero. It came straight from Commodore Decker from Shanxi."

Classified Zero. It meant the information was so sensitive that they could not risk transferring it through the Hypercomms but instead needed to actually move it physically. It also meant that the information was given priority over everything else and was automatically sent straight to the top bypassing military bureaucracy, in the navy's case Grand Admiral Obasanjo.

He plugged the stick into the port on the side of his part of the table and waited for it to load up, seconds pass before the menu came up to the projector. He used the mouse set on his desk to manipulate the menu and access the wanted file.

The file was put up to the projector and immediately Park gasped after reading just the first sentence.

'First contact with an alien species is confirmed but not peaceful.'

It expounded in excruciating detail on how it went down. Minute by minute, action by action. _RV Midas_ detected an unknown craft leaving FTL, then immediately reporting it to their naval escorts. _RV Midas_ then detected some form of signal that Doctor Nakamura thought was the alien ship trying to communicate, powering down some parts of their ship led Doctor Nakamura to believe even strongly that the aliens were really trying to communicate peacefully.

It was shattered when _RV Midas_ received a UAB from _UNS Norway_ that Condition Bravo was in effect, ordering the civilian vessels out. The doctor tried to protest but he was already too late, _RV Midas_ was preparing to send the protest when _UNS Norway and UNS Tharsis_ warped into the location.

Doctor Nakamura immediately saw the alien ship halting their signals and got power back to the part of their ship that got cut off. Again he tried to contact the _Norway_ but was unable to reach Commander Peterson, the communications officer telling him that the commander was in line with Commander Martinez of the _Tharsis._

It was at that moment that all hell broke loose, the alien ship giving off massive spikes of energy through its railgun, Tharsis getting destroyed by a single shot, and the researched vessels getting chased and destroyed by small fighter-like ships.

The report then changed over to the _Norway's_ perspective detailing their actions throughout the engagement, as well as the five hour trip back to Shanxi as their main engines either got destroyed or damaged. The trip normally took an hour with the ship warping a few hundred thousand kilometers above or below the solar plane of Shanxi's system and using thrusters to conclude the last leg of the journey.

Arriving in Naval Station Shanxi-Kunming all of the survivors of the first contact, civilians and naval personnel alike, were confined to quarters in the station to prevent the news from leaking to the press while Commodore Decker verified what actually happened around the megastructure.

In doing so he delayed sending the report up the chain of command by seven hours but as able to use Classified Zero to have it jump straight to the top.

Park was in shock over the report. Never in her life did she thought that first contact with an alien species would actually happen. Ever since the discovery of the Shanxi Megastructure SETI constantly claimed that it was irrefutable proof that intelligent life apart from humans existed in the universe.

With the report on hand Park now needed to grapple with a crisis of unimaginable magnitude. "Casualties?"

To that Obasanjo replied, reading off from the report. " Six vessels destroyed with all hands lost including the _Tharsis_ with a total casualty of over sevend hundred dead and dozens more wounded. Three of the surviving research vessels and _Norway_ suffered a varying amount of damage while only _New Zealand_ was spared as it was not in the battlezone at the time of contact."

"It looked like Commodore Decker already sent a flotilla to secure the megastructure as well as recover debris and possibly the missiles." Pfieiffer added, scrolling through the report on his screen. "The flotilla reported that the there were no signs of the alien ship around the megastructure and they are as of now conducting salvaging operations. Decker's response so far looks alright."

Park hummed, tapping her fingers on the desk as she finished reading the report. "The first contact happened in a total misunderstanding of the situation. God forbid the aliens return and find a flotilla of ships guarding the megasturcture. The last thing we need is for this to escalate into full blown interstellar war."

"So we send some kind of diplomatic envoy to Shanxi, try to somehow contact the alien when they return to the megastructure and explain the situation." Pfeiffer suggested.

"That's correct, we need to clear it up with the aliens that it was all a misunderstanding."

Park got her phone out and started tapping away. "I'll be calling for an emergency session of the Security Council to discuss possible actions, any comments gentlemen?"

The three shook their heads together.

"Okay." Park sent the message to her secretary to begin setting up the session. "Next we'll need to discuss possible military action if this whole thing becomes ugly."

The secretary-general looked Pfeiffer straight in his eyes. "Is it possible to conduct a mobilization of the armed forces lets say in a week's time?"

Pfeiffer rubbed his chin, deep in thought, and looked at the two beside him. "When was the last time the mobilization timetable got updated?"

Nguyễn replied, slightly embarrassed. "Two decades ago secretary."

Park sighed. "Well this seems to be a good time to renew it."

She placed her phone back into her purse and turned the projector off. "I think everyone here agrees that there is a bigger issue at hand than the expansion of the armed forces which, mind you, would not be a problem anymore if we get into a war."

The three nodded as they fixed their things.

Park stood up. "Gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned. I'll be calling for another meeting when we have all the details, until then I wish the best of luck for all of us whatever may happen."

As she left the room and walked through the long hallways Park's heart started to race. Aliens! And its during her term!

All of the first contact jokes aside she was now on the precipice of humanity's future. What will the aliens be? Are they like the ones science-fiction had that are out to conquer other races and enslave them? Or are they more of the friendly ones that are out to make friends.

Park groaned as the entered the turbo-lift. It the aliens came back not with an envoy of their own but a fleet of warships then it could be the end of humanity as they know it. But if the aliens came with open arm then maybe humanity could continue to be as they are.

Whatever happens humanity will never be the same again when the news finally breaks out and she shuddered thinking how horribly society would react to such an announcement knowing that first contact was not through diplomacy and peace but through fire and death.

XXXXXXXXXX

 ** _Codex_**

 _A Hypercomms Terminal is a station that is normally connected to a space elevator. It consists of its own fusion reactor to power Hypercomms generators that are able to send data out to two hundred light-years. The second generation generators currently in service throughout the UN have an estimated bandwidth of one terabyte per second though its exact number remains classified._

 _The United Nations Headquarters is a sprawling complex covering a total of over two and a half square kilometers, half of which is several hundred meters underground. It is located at the base of the Jura Moutains north-west of Geneva and can be easily accessed by road and by train from the Geneva-Pretoria-Macap_ _á_ _(GPM) Space Elevator on the outskirts of the historic Swiss capital. Constructed between 2112 to 2115 it was envisioned as the new impregnable headquarters of the UN after the original headquarters in New York City was destroyed in a surprise attack during the early days of the Great Interstellar War._


End file.
